Salesforce literally rocked South of Market San Francisco with its 10th annual Dreamforce user conference Sept. 19, introducing new applications and services that enable businesses to mine the social Web for marketing data that then can be used to communicate with consumers, customers and partners. It all boils down to creating an optimal marketing environment by leveraging the cloud, fast networking and mobile devices, as opposed to traditional enterprise software in an office. Salesforce is facing increasing competition from long-established enterprise app software giants such as Microsoft, SAP and Oracle along with a bevy of brash newcomers. In response, it has expanded its CRM and social-networking offerings to keep its SaaS platform the leader in the field. It's a bit difficult to keep score with all the new products being released, so eWEEK has compiled an easy-to-parse list of product introductions at this huge event (with 90,000 attendees registered by Day 1). It also was a loud event as Rapper M.C. Hammer performed during the Day 2 morning keynote session and Red Hot Chili Peppers and Lady Antebellum were on the evening entertainment bill.

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People Traffic Jam

Salesforce CEO and founder Marc Benioff announced that a whopping 90,000 people had registered for Dreamforce X, which would be an all-time record for an IT event in the Bay Area. By the looks of the event all week, there should be few doubters that show attendance reached that five-digit number.

Chris Preimesberger was named Editor-in-Chief of Features & Analysis at eWEEK in November 2011. Previously he served eWEEK as Senior Writer, covering a range of IT sectors that include data center systems, cloud computing, storage, virtualization, green IT, e-discovery and IT governance. His blog, Storage Station, is considered a go-to information source. Chris won a national Folio Award for magazine writing in November 2011 for a cover story on Salesforce.com and CEO-founder Marc Benioff, and he has served as a judge for the SIIA Codie Awards since 2005. In previous IT journalism, Chris was a founding editor of both IT Manager's Journal and DevX.com and was managing editor of Software Development magazine. His diverse resume also includes: sportswriter for the Los Angeles Daily News, covering NCAA and NBA basketball, television critic for the Palo Alto Times Tribune, and Sports Information Director at Stanford University. He has served as a correspondent for The Associated Press, covering Stanford and NCAA tournament basketball, since 1983. He has covered a number of major events, including the 1984 Democratic National Convention, a Presidential press conference at the White House in 1993, the Emmy Awards (three times), two Rose Bowls, the Fiesta Bowl, several NCAA men's and women's basketball tournaments, a Formula One Grand Prix auto race, a heavyweight boxing championship bout (Ali vs. Spinks, 1978), and the 1985 Super Bowl. A 1975 graduate of Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif., Chris has won more than a dozen regional and national awards for his work. He and his wife, Rebecca, have four children and reside in Redwood City, Calif.Follow on Twitter: editingwhiz